Chapter 28

THE TRAIL HORDE

From the front windows of the Wolf Saloon, Slade, the violent-mannered rider whom Blondy Antrim had left in charge of his men the night he had ridden away from the desert camp fire to hold a conference with Lawler near the trail herd, had watched Sheriff Moreton lope his horse into the soft southern twilight.

Slade was a young man, tall, swarthy, reckless-eyed. He was keen, cynical, and jealous of the power and authority of Antrim. He grinned at Warden, who was standing near, also watching Moreton.

The grin was crooked, expressing reluctance.

"Well the Law is hittin' the breeze, an' I reckon, accordin' to orders, we'll be hittin' it, too."

He left Warden and walked to the bar, where he spoke lowly to several men. Then he walked into a rear room, where several other men were playing cards, and repeated his words. The men ceased playing and followed him to the front door.

Half an hour later, when Sheriff Moreton had vanished into the growing dusk, Slade and the men to whom he had spoken, went outside, clambered upon their horses and rode slowly in the direction taken by the sheriff.

There were a score of them--rough-looking characters with eyes as reckless as those of the man who led them; and they were silent as they rode, as though on some stealthy mission.

They did not follow Moreton far; they veered eastward slightly after they had traveled several miles, and finally came to a trail that paralleled a small river, which they rode for a time.

Darkness came while they rode, and the twinkling points of stars grew brighter in the cold blue of the sky--millions of them appeared, distant, winking, shedding a luminous haze over the land.

After a time the riders reached a level near the river, and some low buildings loomed out of the haze. A light glowed through a window in one of the buildings--the largest--and toward this the men rode, dropping from their horses at the door and filing silently inside.

In a big room, from which came the light the riders had seen, were many other men.

Antrim, his bronzed face almost the hue of copper in the glare from the lamp that stood on a table, was sitting in a chair near the door. Some of the men inside were on their feet, expectant, suspicious. They grinned when they recognized the newcomers, calling variously to them in greeting.

Antrim got to his feet when he saw Slade at the door, looking at him expectantly. When Slade grinned, telling Antrim that Moreton had ridden south, Antrim's eyes glittered with satisfaction.

"Selden!" he ordered, sharply; "you slope for the Circle L trail an' watch it! When you see Moreton an' Lawler headin' toward town, you fan it here in a hurry!"

A tall man with two guns sagging at his hips leaped to the door and plunged out. In the silence that followed his departure, they could hear the thudding of hoofs that marked his going.

Antrim grinned coldly around at the other men.

"We'll clean up on Lawler tonight, boys," he said. "We've got to work fast!"

He stood, boldly outlined in the light, a sinister figure. His cruel lips were set tightly, his eyes were agleam. He was a symbol of passion, rampant and unrecking--a wild, violent spirit to whom laws were irksome shackles.

He grinned at Slade, mockingly, naked malevolence in his gaze. His voice was harsh, vibrant.

"Slade, tonight you're goin' to get what you've been waitin' for--the leadership! Ha, ha!" he laughed as he saw Slade's face work with the bitter rage that instantly seized him. "You thought I didn't know you wanted my place--eh? Bah! I've known it for a year. You're ambitious, eh? Well, listen!

"Tonight you're leadin' this little party. You're to run off them cattle of Lawler's--three thousand head--which he euchered me out of last fall. You're takin' three thousand head, Slade--not a one less. If you take less you're through with me. You'll run 'em down through Kinney's cañon, clear through to the big basin beyond. At the other end you'll head 'em south, to Mexico--where we've been runnin' 'em for three years past. You'll take a receipt for them from a guy named Miguel Lomo, who will be waitin' for you at Panya--where you knifed that Oiler last summer. Warden arranged that.

"You'll post a dozen men in Kinney's cañon, to drop anyone that follows. There's goin' to be no excuses, or you settle with me--afterward. Understand?"

Slade's eyes glared with savage triumph and defiance. He grinned felinely at the other, and when he spoke there was cold, taunting contempt in his voice.

"I'm doin' it, Antrim! I'm tickled to get the chance. But where are you goin' to be tonight?"

Antrim flushed darkly. He laughed. "I'm figurin' to do a man's work--tonight or tomorrow, Slade. Somethin' that you ain't got nerve enough to do--I'm goin' to face Kane Lawler when he's riled, with a gun in his hand! I'm goin' to down him right here in this room!"

Slade started, his face paled. He laughed mirthlessly.

"Well," he said, watching Antrim keenly; "if he's as fast as he used to be--before gettin' to be a big guy in this neck of the woods tamed him--you'll have to be lightnin'--an' then some!"

He wheeled, and went out of the door, where he stood, looking toward the plains on the other side of the river, grinning derisively.

* * * * *

Two hours later Selden clattered to the door of the cabin and dismounted, conveying the news that Moreton and Lawler were riding north, toward Willets. And within a few minutes after the appearance of Selden, Slade and forty-eight of Antrim's men rode swiftly, scurrying into the star haze, straight into the south wind that swept out of the Wolf River valley.

The men rode close together for more than an hour, until they reached the crest of the big valley, where they halted, closely massed, and scanned the semi-gloom in front of them.

The big valley was silent, somber. There was no movement in it. Looking down from the crest the Antrim men could see the dim outlines of the Circle L buildings; and they had no trouble in distinguishing the ranchhouse, out of which through a window, a feeble glimmer of light came. The other buildings were dark.

One of the men laughed raucously, as he pointed out the light. "That's mebbe Lawler's old woman, settin' up, wonderin' what her boy's been grabbed by the law for," he sneered. "Well, she'll be wonderin' more--after Blondy gits through with him."

Slade chuckled, but said nothing. He was hoping that by this time on the morrow Antrim would have discovered that Kane Lawler could "sling" a gun with the speed and accuracy he had used in the old days.

Far down in the valley, Slade pointed out the cattle. They were scattered a little, as though perfunctorily guarded, but still massed enough to make the task of rounding them up comparatively simple to the big group of men in Slade's company.

"There ain't more'n half a dozen men ridin' night herd down there," said Slade as he pointed out the forms of several horsemen in the vicinity of the herd; "an' likely enough they ain't watchin' a hell of a lot." He issued some orders, and the group on the crest of the valley split up. Some of them rode west along the edge of the valley, where there was a fringe of juniper and post oak to conceal them; others slid down into the valley directly toward the herd, keeping in the tangled growth that featured the sloping sides of the great hollow. They were adept at this work, and they moved like shadows until they reached the wide floor of the valley.

Then, spreading out, fanwise, a number of them swinging far around the herd so that they approached it from the west, they closed in.

There was no longer any attempt at concealment. A shot from Slade's pistol was the signal for a violent dash that instantly set the big herd in motion. As the attack came from the west the cattle moved eastward, bleating and bellowing with surprise. They moved slowly at first, as though confused by the suddenness of the rush--milling in bewilderment; detached numbers dashing here and there in wild affright.

Concerted movement came when the strange horsemen began to flank them. Eastward there was open ground, with no dashing, shooting men to bar their progress, and eastward they went, a dark mass that moved with exceeding swiftness straight up the valley.

The few cowboys who had been riding night herd made a feeble, astonished resistance. There were several shots, frenzied cries of rage and pain; and then nothing but the thunderous rumble of hoofs; the shouts of the driving rustlers; scattered shots and the clashing of horns. A vast dust cloud ballooned above the herd; and five riderless Circle L horses trotted aimlessly about, snorting with fright.

The big herd had gone with the suddenness of a cyclone. It went, rumbling up the valley, the dust cloud hovering over it, blotting out its movements. It roared past the Circle L bunkhouses, leaving behind it a number of Circle L cowboys who had been awakened by the thunderous noise. The Circle L men had plunged outside in various stages of undress--all bootless, unprepared, amazed, and profane.

"Stampede!" yelled a hoarse voice.

"Stampede--hell!" shouted another. "It's rustlers! That damn Antrim bunch!"

This was Shorty. The lithe giant had rushed out of the bunkhouse as the herd thundered past. He was now running back toward the bunkhouse, trying to tighten the waistband of his trousers with a belt whose buckleless end persisted in eluding his grasp.

His words had spurred the other men to frenzied action. There was confusion in the bunkhouse where men collided with their fellows as they plunged about for discarded garments, gun-belts, and boots. But soon they began to straggle out of the door in twos and threes and singly, racing for the corral and for the lean-to where they kept their saddles.

Foremost among them was Shorty. His tall figure appeared first at the corral gates, and his long legs were the first astride a horse. While the others were running hither and yon near the bunkhouse and the corral, Shorty raced his horse to the ranchhouse, slid off and crossed the wide porch in two or three leaps.

He was confronted at the door by Mrs. Lawler, ashen, trembling.

"Rustlers!" he said, shortly, answering her look of interrogation. "Where's the boss?"

The woman's voice broke. "Sheriff Moreton came after him some hours ago--and took him to Willets--charging him with murdering those two men at the line cabin, last winter. He isn't guilty, of course," declared the mother; "but of course he had to go with Moreton."

Shortly swore silently. "All right, ma'am," he said, aloud; "I reckon we'll have to handle it without him! Some of the boys of the night herd are hurt, most likely--mebbe worse. If you'd sort of look after them--mebbe--" He broke off short when he saw riders rushing from the corral toward the house. "I'll stop at Joe Hamlin's place an' send Ruth over, to help you. We can't spare any men--there's a horde of them devils!"

He was leaping for his horse with the last words, and in an instant he had joined the other riders who had paused, tentatively, near the edge of the porch, having seen him. They fled, a dark mass against the dull shadows of the valley, sweeping up the big slope toward the plains.

Blackburn, the range boss, was leading, with Shorty riding close beside him. In the dim distance they could see the herd, spreading wide over the level, running fast in the dust cloud that still followed them.

The Circle L men had not ridden more than a mile after striking the level when Blackburn saw some blots detach themselves from the larger blot--a number of them, like stray wisps of clouds straggling behind a storm.

"They're droppin' back to pot-shot us," Blackburn said to Shorty. He yelled at the men behind, warning them, and the group split up, spreading out, though not reducing the breakneck speed at which they had been riding.

They had not gone far after Blackburn shouted his warning when a puff of white smoke dotted the luminous haze ahead, and a bullet whined close to Blackburn.

"Rifle!" said Blackburn, grimly.

There were still three Circle L men at the line camps on the range; five had been left behind in the valley when the attack had been made; and only twenty others, including Blackburn, were left to cope with the rustlers.

Blackburn cast a worried glance at them. He had plunged out of the bunkhouse with the other men in time to catch a glimpse of the outlaws as they went by with the herd, and he had roughly estimated their number at fifty. The odds were great, and the advantage lay with the pursued, for they could select ambuscades and take terrible toll from the Circle L men.

Yet Blackburn was determined. He yelled to the others to take advantage of whatever cover they could find; and he saw them slide from their horses, one after another, and throw themselves into a shallow depression that ran erratically north and south for some distance over the plains. Before they reached the depression, however, there had come more white puffs of smoke from the space ahead of them, and Blackburn saw two Circle L men slide from their horses with a finality that brought a savage glare into his eyes.

"Shorty," he said, hoarsely, to the big man at his side--who had wriggled behind a rock at the crest of the depression and was coldly and deliberately using the rifle he had taken from the holster on his saddle; "we've got to have help--them scum outnumber us. You've got the fastest horse an' you're the best rider in the bunch. An' you've got the most sense. Barthman's ranch is the nearest, an' he's got fifteen men. You hit the breeze over there an' tell him what's happened. Tell him we're whipped if he don't help us. An' tell him to send a rider to Corts, an' Littlefield, an' Sigmund, an' Lester, an' Caldwell. Tell 'em to take that trail leadin' to Kinney's cañon--this side. That's where they're headin' the cattle to. They'll come a-rushin', for they like the boss.

"There's forty men in that gang that's hidin' ahead of us, tryin' to wipe us out. But if they was a hundred we could keep 'em from makin' any time, an' if you'll burn the breeze some, you can have Barthman an' the others at the trail near Kinney's cañon before these guys get there!"

"Hell's fire, Blackburn," protested Shorty; "ain't there somebody else can ride a damned horse? I'm aimin' to salivate some of them skunks!"

"Orders is orders, Shorty," growled Blackburn, coldly. "You're goin', an' you're goin' right this minute--or I'm goin' to bust you in the eye!"

"Well, if you put it that way," grimly grinned Shorty.

He crawled out of the depression, threw himself upon his horse and raced southeastward, yelling, and waving his hat defiantly at the outlaws, who were shooting at him. But the speed of Shorty's horse was too great for accurate shooting; and Shorty kept going--waving his hat for a time, and then, when out of range, riding hard--seeming to glide like a shadow into the yawning gulf of distance.

The depression into which Blackburn and his men had crept was not more than three or four feet deep, with long, sloping sides which were covered with alkali and rotted rock. Along the edges grew greasewood and mesquite bushes, which afforded concealment but not protection. The shallow was wide enough for the horses, though the men were forced to throw the animals and stake their heads down, so that they would not show themselves above the edge of the depression and thus become targets for the outlaws.

The firing during the night was intermittent. Once the outlaws made an attempt to withdraw, rushing concertedly toward their horses, which they had concealed in a sand draw slightly behind them, southward. But Blackburn and his men were alert.

The outlaws had chosen a gully for their ambuscade, but they had made the mistake of leaving their horses too far away from their place of concealment. And when they rushed across the stretch of level that extended from the gully to the draw, half a dozen of them dropped before they had traveled a quarter of the distance. The others plunged back into the gully, while the Circle L men yelled exultantly.

As Blackburn had told Shorty, he did not expect to rout or capture the outlaws; the best he could hope for was that Shorty would get help in time to head off the cattle before the other outlaws drove them into Kinney's cañon or that he would bring help to the Circle L men in time to prevent the sanguinary fight which would certainly occur as soon as the day dawned.

And so Blackburn waited, grimly watchful; though worry began to wrinkle his face as he noted that the semi-gloom of the starlit night was lifting, and that a gray streak on the eastern horizon was slowly broadening.